Project Overview

Continuing Geva Theatre Center’s mission of placing our stagework at the crossroads of artistic excellence and community engagement, this season we celebrate a remarkable opportunity to put nine local high schools on Geva’s Mainstage simultaneously.

John Cariani’s Almost, Maine is part of Geva’s 2009-10 mainstage season. The playwright has referred to the play as a “midwinter night’s dream”, and it is indeed a wonder filled tale about the vulnerability and risk from which love springs. Almost, Maine breaks down into nine separate scenes that occur simultaneously – at 9pm, Friday night, midwinter.

All around Rochester, nine high school directors have cast young actors in one of the nine scenes from Almost, Maine. They have also each recruited a student interested in design and technical theatre to join a creative team to discuss production elements.

The young actors from the nine schools will all come together to participate in an all-day Saturday acting and ensemble building workshop at Geva. They will have the opportunity to meet their counterparts in the Geva production at a company “Meet and Greet”, observe a rehearsal, share character insights over dinner with the adult company, and attend the a public performance at Geva, followed by a post-show discussion.

The production students have the occasion to respond to the creative design opportunities in the script and, guided by the director's vision and interpretive priorities, research, conceptualize, and begin to explore their own approach to a design element (costumes, lighting, scenic, or sound) in the production. The design students will have the chance to share and discuss their ideas with Geva’s design team for Almost, Maine, tour Geva’s shops, as well as observe elements of the technical rehearsal process at Geva.

This collaboration culminates in a unique and rare final phase. After rehearsing their own scenes independently at their respective schools, the students return to Geva to combine the nine scenes in sequence and polish their show, incorporating the existing light, sound and scenic elements created for Geva’s own production. The students then perform their own version of Almost, Maine on Geva’s Mainstage for members of the school and Rochester communities, as well as the Geva acting company.

The opportunity to bring High School students “through the stage door” invites Geva artisans to share the wonder the students bring to this endeavor. We acknowledge our roles as theatre stewards by interacting with this younger company from our community, and we thank them for the privilege of learning with – and from – all of them.

• Follow the Stage Door Project on our blog here.
• Learn more about Education programming here.
• Support Education programming here.
• Learn more about Geva’s production of Almost, Maine here.

Stage Door Project Participants

Rush-Henrietta High School (“Prologue”)
Director: Trish Annese
Cast: John Gonzalez, Chelsea Goodrich
Designers: Alison Dobbertin, Ryan Lumb, Kristin Molinari

Fairport High School (“Her Heart”)
Director: Mark Northrup
Cast: Nick Covell, Claudia Zanolli-Stiles
Designer: Ryan Yaeger

Irondequoit High School (“Sad and Glad”)
Director: Rob Line
Cast: Keighley Farrell, Brooklynn Ruggieri, Aaron Taddeo
Designer: Paul Philippone

Aquinas Institute (“This Hurts”)
Director: Mary Krickmire
Cast: Andrew Kent, Kalya Perconti
Designer: Josh Best

Brighton High School (“Getting it Back”)
Director: Judy Shomper
Cast: Hannah Pisher, Aaron Salzman
Designer: Ahra Gho

McQuaid Jesuit School (“They Fell”)
Director: Tracey Bors
Cast: Sean Craig, Joe Napier
Designer: R.J. Papaleo

Allendale Columbia School (“Where it Went”)
Director: Jackie Salitan
Cast: Robbie Cooper, Gabby Perez
Designer: Celia Cooper

School of the Arts ("Story of Hope")
Director: Luke Fellows
Cast: Peter Balonon-Rosen, Kathryn Rebholz
Designer: Amonee Reed

Pittsford-Sutherland High School (“Seeing the Thing”)
Director: Monica Gebell
Cast: Julia Johnston, Craig Kober
Designer: Kirsten Frisina

Geva Theatre Center Creative Team
Director: Skip Greer
Cast: David Mason, Alexis McGuinness, Patrick Noonan, Regan Thompson
Scenic Designer: Dipu Gupta
Costume Designer: Patricia Creswell
Lighting Designer: Kendall Smith
Composer: John Zeretzke
Sound Designer: Dan Roach

Stage Door Project: Almost, Maine
Timeline of Events

Stage Door events are by invitation-only unless otherwise noted.

September 30: Directors Meeting

October 20: Design Collective Meeting #1
Design students discuss the role of design in theatre. They share ideas about the script, and listen to Director Skip Greer offer some of his inspiration and guiding priorities for a production. Designers are assigned an element of their school’s scene to interpret and research.

November 9: Schools/Geva Marketing Meeting

November 12: Design Collective Meeting #2
Design students show their first research collections and inspirations. Skip Greer and Matthew Reinert (Geva’s Production Manager) discuss how to develop the ideas. Students embark on their projects.

November 19: Parents meeting

November 21: Directing workshop with High School Directors
Skip Greer and the high school directors share exercises, tools and approach to the work.

Dec. 5: Acting workshop with full High School company
High school actors work on ensemble building, sharing common vocabulary through acting exercises and tools, and defining the actor’s role in the rehearsal process ahead.

Dec. 10: Design Collective Meeting #3 with High School teachers
Design students share their projects with the full group.

Dec. 21: Geva Company Meet and Greet/ First Read-Through
High School directors, casts and designers attend the first company gathering and read-through, along with Geva staff and guest artists.

December and January: Ongoing rehearsal and shadowing opportunities

Jan 5: Rehearsal visit and Actor “character sharing” dinner
High school actors observe Geva rehearsal and have dinner with the professional actors.

Jan. 16: Geva Almost, Maine Opening Night
8:00 PM, Geva Theatre Center
How do I get tickets?

Jan 17: Design Collective Meeting #4 with Geva Designers
High school designers and their professional counterparts discuss their work. Scenic designers meet with Dipu Gupta, Costume designers meet with Pamela Cresswell, Lighting designers meet with Kendall Smith, Sound designers meet with Dan Roach.

Jan. 19: Stage Door participants attend Geva Almost, Maine “early curtain” performance
6:00 PM, Geva Theatre Center
High school participants will share a special post-show discussion with the Geva artists.
How do I get tickets?

Jan. 21: Geva Almost, Maine matinee performance for schools
10:30AM, Geva Theatre Center
How do I get tickets?

Jan 23: Combined Stage Door Rehearsal

Jan 28, 29: Technical and Dress Rehearsals at Geva

Feb. 1: Stage Door Performance
7:30PM, Geva Theatre Center
Tickets are available through the participating schools, and we encourage you to support them. A very limited number of tickets are available through the Geva Box Office.